Yalda Amini

IMAGO Fellow, 2018

Yalda is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Policy Administration in International Development at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Before attending Harvard, Yalda worked as a data analyst and policy consultant in Iran’s Ministry of Social Welfare. She also has experience as a public relations supervisor in the private sector, IT industry. She has MBA and BSc in Electrical Engineering.

Homa Koohi

Homa Koohi

IMAGO Fellow, 2018

Homa is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Public Administration, International Development (MPA/ID) at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Before joining Kennedy school as an student, Homa was a Research Assistant at MIT, Sloan School of Management. In that role, she investigated how retail industry corporations can transition effectively from “bad jobs strategy” to “good jobs strategy”, in which employees have higher wages, more predictable schedules and more advancement opportunities. In this research, Homa focused on designing and developing human subject experiments to understand barriers to effective implementation of this transition.

Previously, Homa worked with several educational non-profits in Iran, including Asemaan, where she worked as an executive and project manager, developing systems thinking skills in young children. Homa holds a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Sharif University of Technology, Iran.

Emily Hsiao

Emily Hsaio

IMAGO Fellow, 2018

Emily is a dual-degree candidate for the Master in Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID) at the Harvard Kennedy School and Master in Business Administration (MBA) at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Prior to her graduate studies, Emily worked for 5 years as a management consultant at Bain and Company across Tokyo, Taipei, and Chicago, where her experience spanned the technology, finance, infrastructure, and consumer packaged goods industries.

In addition, Emily worked for a year as an Innovation and Change Management Consultant at the United Nations World Food Programme, where her work focused on increasing efficiency and knowledge management. Alongside her career in consulting, Emily co-founded an education technology company called Nesuku, which aims to help private instructors better manage and grow their businesses.

Jimena Vallejos

Jimena Vallejos

IMAGO Fellow, 2018

Jimena is a development professional with five years of program management experience in poverty elimination programs, microfinance and financial inclusion. She worked as manager of the Poverty Stoplight, an innovative and participatory poverty assessment tool that has been replicated in over 15 countries. During her time at Fundacion Paraguaya, Jimena also worked as manager of the program Inclusive Microfinance Opportunities which created tools and procedures to enable people with disabilities and their families to access financial services and improve their quality of life.

Jimena is currently pursuing a Masters of Public Administration in Development Practice at Columbia University in New York, and will work as IMAGO Fellow during the summer 2018 to collaborate with our parter Transforming Rural India.

Erika Caballero Montoya

Erika Caballero Montoya

IMAGO Fellow, 2018

Erika is a candidate for the Masters in Public Administration in International Development at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Prior to commencing her graduate studies, Erika was the Deputy Director of Research and Analysis of the Financial Market at the Ministry of Finance for Mexico. In that capacity, Erika analyzed data on global development to assess their impact on Mexico’s macroeconomic fundamentals.

Alongside her professional career, Erika collaborated with CREA, an organization that develops and implements programs designed to empower women entrepreneurs in deprived areas, where she led a project to implement a business plan at a textile processing business in the Mexican state of Zacatecas. Erika started her career at the Central Bank of Mexico where she performed forecasts on cash flow management strategies in order to ensure the effective transmission of Monetary Policy. Erika is a graduate of the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México with a major in Economics.

Niriksha Shetty

Niriksha Shetty

IMAGO Fellow, 2018

Vince Jeong

Vince Jeong

IMAGO Fellow, 2017

Vince is a consultant at McKinsey & Company and a recent graduate of Harvard Kennedy School’s MPA/ID Program. Throughout his career, he has focused on tackling development issues from different angles: as a management consultant advising global development organizations, as a project manager leading program implementation for a healthcare NGO in Tanzania, and as a business designer launching new companies for the emerging Latin American middle class at a venture builder in Colombia. Vince graduated top of his class in the Operations Research & Financial Engineering Department from Princeton University.

Surili Sheth

Surili Sheth

IMAGO Fellow, 2017

Surili brings experience in governance, gender, rural livelihoods, data analytics, program evaluation, and community development work in India and other developing countries. Prior to joining IMAGO, she served as Manager for IDinsight, in the Concurrent Evaluation Cell for the Andhra Pradesh Society for the Elimination of Rural Poverty (Ministry of Rural Development) and for various other governance -related projects. She has also worked with the MIT Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL South Asia), the Affordable Housing Institute, and the Busara Center for Behavioral Economics in Kenya.

Surili holds a B.S. in Economics and Political Science from The Ohio State University and a Masters in Public Administration, International Development (MPA/ID) from the Harvard Kennedy School

Namrata Saraogi

Namrata Saraogi

IMAGO Fellow, 2017

Namrata is currently pursuing a Master’s in Public Administration, International Development (MPA/ID) at Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government. Previously, Namrata was working with the World Bank Group on education policies and service delivery in East Asia and Pacific, South Asia and Middle East.

Namrata holds a B.A. Honors in Economics from Lady Shri Ram College for Women, Delhi University and an M.Sc. in Economics from University College London.

Marcela Gutierrez

Marcela Gutierrez

IMAGO Fellow, 2016

Marcela is a research analyst at the World Bank Group. When she was working with IMAGO she was pursuing a Masters in Public Administration and International Development at the Kennedy School of Government. Prior to graduate school, Marcela gained five years of experience designing, implementing and evaluating social programs in more than 10 countries in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and the Western Balkans. Among others, she worked with the World Bank as project coordinator of the STEP Skills Measurement Program (the first initiative to measure cognitive and socio-emotional skills in developing countries). Prior to that, she was the Senior Advisor to the Ministry of Social Protection and Inclusion in Peru. Marcela graduated cum laude from Universidad de los Andes with Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Business Management.

Paroma Husain

Paroma Husain

IMAGO Fellow, 2017

Paroma is a development professional with more than 5 years of international experience in microfinance, digital financial services, qualitative research and project management. She worked as a Deputy Manager at BRAC – one of world’s largest NGOs – for nearly 4 years in several large-scale projects in Bangladesh and Uganda. She holds a Bachelor degree in Finance from the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, and a Master degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University – where she studied Development Economics and Business for Social Impact. She has also consulted for various financial institutions and development agencies including FinTech Sandbox, Fundación Paraguay, and IMAGO Global Grassroots.

Jason Silberstein

Jason Silberstein

IMAGO Fellow, 2016

Jason holds a Masters in Public Administration and International Development from the Harvard Kennedy School. After his time with Imago, he plans to work in the Myanmar Ministry of Education through a Fulbright-Clinton Public Policy Fellowship. Prior to graduate school he worked for 3 years with Seva Mandir, one of India’s leading grassroots nonprofits, where he founded a community tourism startup.

Ronnie Brodsky

Ronnie Brodsky

IMAGO Fellow, 2016

Ronnie is pursuing joint Masters degrees in Business Administration and Economic Policy (an MBA and MPA-ID) at the Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Prior to graduate school, Ronnie worked in data-driven policy consulting for seven U.S. government agencies, focusing on financial regulation and loan guarantee programs. She has also worked in humanitarian relief in Guatemala. Ronnie graduated first in her graduating class and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Maryland, College Park, with a Bachelor’s degree in Economics.

Lucila Arboleya

Lucila Arboleya

IMAGO Fellow, 2014-2015

Lucila holds a Masters in Public Administration and International Development from the Harvard Kennedy School. She has several years of experience working in the energy and infrastructure sector, focused on trading of oil derivatives and solar power. She also served as a television anchor of economics for two years, and has co-founded two NGOs, one in education and another focused on volunteering.

Taylor Ray

Taylor Ray

IMAGO Fellow, 2015-2016

Taylor is an MBA/MPA dual degree candidate at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Harvard Kennedy School. He is interested in the ways that technology, innovation, and global value chains are transforming the developing world.

Kerry Yang

Kerry Yang

IMAGO Fellow, 2014-2015

Kerry is a second year PhD candidate in Financial Economics at Columbia University, with a focus on credit and banking systems. She has experience working in investment banking at Morgan Stanley in New York, consulting at McKinsey & Company in China, and investing with Acumen Fund in West Africa. Prior to her PhD, she completed her MBA/MPA-ID at Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Kerry has worked with IMAGO in various capacities since 2014, in both Ahmadabad and Washington DC. Kerry is from South Kingstown, Rhode Island, and studied Economics at Harvard College.